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The Divinity Student
Short but powerful, this neo-gothic novel, which is illustrated by Harry O. Morris, uses the crisp immediacy of the present tense to lead the reader on a hallucinatory journey from humanity to inhuman transcendence. After a miraculous recovery from near death, a young man known only as the Divinity Student is beset by strange dreams whose lingering effects further alienate him from his fellows.
149 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1999
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3592 people want to read
About the author
Michael Cisco
91 books470 followersMichael Cisco is an American weird fiction writer, Deleuzian academic and a teacher, currently living in New York City. He is best known for his first novel, The Divinity Student, winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel of 1999.
He is interested in confusion.
He is interested in confusion.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
November 14, 2022
The Divinity Student is Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany and Gene Wolfe rolled into one…
The beginning is weird… The tale continues weirdly… The ending is the weirdest…
Are those creatures angels? Is it just a hallucination?
After being dismissed from the Seminary the Divinity Student goes to the city and is hired as a word-finder by a weird employer…
After some adventures in the city the Divinity Student acquires a very special skill and is commissioned to fulfill a weird linguistic assignment… He is after the knowledge and demons are after him…
Ancient, forgotten languages… Secrets of the prehistoric past… Who doesn’t want to learn the ultimate mystery and to be the master of reality?
The beginning is weird… The tale continues weirdly… The ending is the weirdest…
Quickly they bring him inside, lay him across two sawhorses and start cutting at him – they gut him like a fish, cut open from throat to waist, red hands pull his ribs apart, head and shoulders hanging down, his arms lying flat on the ground, tugged back and forth as they empty him out. They dump his contents cooked and steaming on the floor, and bring up stacks of books and manila folders, tearing out pages and shuffling out sheets of paper, all covered with writing, stuffing them inside, tamping them down behind his ribs and crushing them together in his abdomen. What pages they select and what books they tear are of little importance, only that he be completely filled up with writing, to bring him back, to set him to the task. Then they suture him shut again – drag him to the tub and dump him in the water, slopping blue water on gray stone pavings, and together they draw breath and drop open their mouths, screaming noiselessly as they shove his face under the running tap and pushing him full under the water with their red hands, under their wings.
Are those creatures angels? Is it just a hallucination?
After being dismissed from the Seminary the Divinity Student goes to the city and is hired as a word-finder by a weird employer…
The clerk sniffs at him dubiously and trudges off, absently waving the Divinity Student after him. Woodwind is standing at a table in the far corner: a tall whitehaired man with rolled sleeves and an apron. He is excising a page from an open book with a long pair of tweezers – dropping it into a pan of clear gray liquid. Having soaked it thoroughly, he retrieves it and plies it over a blue fire; his heavy brows knit as he reads the page’s new contents to a clerk taking dictation. Finished, he brings the page down just over the fire, and it bursts into flames.
After some adventures in the city the Divinity Student acquires a very special skill and is commissioned to fulfill a weird linguistic assignment… He is after the knowledge and demons are after him…
He can see them, one a boy, one a girl, shaking with silent laughter, standing rigid by the side of the road, and the air around his head is crumbling into black pellets. In the distance, a pair of headlights stab into his eyes—there’s a car coming fast down the road, still far away but speeding toward him. Pushed down by a weight, the Divinity Student stumbles against a wrought-iron fence, feet slipping on dewy black grass, seeing now that flies are swarming from their noses, burrowing out from the corners of their eyes, crushing themselves pushing between their teeth until their chins run with threads of black juice.
Ancient, forgotten languages… Secrets of the prehistoric past… Who doesn’t want to learn the ultimate mystery and to be the master of reality?
September 28, 2020
You fall asleep and so enter a strange dream. In this dream, you are a scholar of faith, of divinity. You have died and your body becomes transformed: now made of the stuff of books, your insides stuffed like a bookcase. And so you are reborn, and sent on a secret mission: search for the secret words, in the secretive city of San Veneficio, words once discovered by certain deceased investigators. You will go to a job, and learn nothing; you will go to a church, and learn much. You will meet a girl and a butcher: together you will make your own special place, together you will find the bodies of those word surveyors and dig them up, break them free; you will distill and then drink their secret essence. You will find such knowledge... empowering. Your mind expands. You become transformed again, your powers increase as your connection to life decreases. Your mission is inconsequential now, forgotten; your former masters hold no sway. You are the Divinity Student: you will always study the empyrean domain above, unearthing those bodies below, prying out their secrets. You will die and live again. What does it all mean? you wonder. What do these secrets amount to, how can the ineffable, the divine, be contained within mere words? There is no need to wonder on such things, you realize. This is all merely a dream. Or maybe a nightmare? Perhaps you have become the nightmare.
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October 19, 2019
Words and more words hit you in the face, boiling against your eyes like hedgehogs, not one at a time but great glancing gobbets of words, splattering and spattering, filling your nose and mouth, aching lines of sinuously strung adverbs, never one lonely adjective where yawning space can be found for an ostentatious prancing battalion of them, such a twinklingly clever stylistic choice for a book about word finders. And as for punctuation, don't bother using it for pacing, don't bother trying to pace at all, each lividly dripping sentence longer than the last, as if that's the way to convey movement and action, no variation in tone or register, of course there is a plot but keep ladling those words onto it, baste it in foggy adjectival juices, smother it in lumps of wordy sauce until it dissolves clean away, leaving a taste on the tongue of characters that are nothing more than empty ciphers, chuntering jars crammed into vats of formaldehyde plugged into the brain of the bludgeoned reader who has no choice but to listen to their raspy whispers and indistinguishable shouts and all those words, so many words in such long rows.
January 5, 2020
A very aged man finds again the love he lost as a youth. As he moves to embrace her, he is suddenly transported to a lightless place. He can feel a cool, sterile wind blowing upon his face, a numbness in his limbs. Nearby are shrieks and mutterings, unseen yammering things surrounding him on all sides. After an infinite time he wakes beneath a tree, when a raindrop, a single one, drops into his right eye. When he understands that all he had just experienced was merely a dream, he walks into a river and drowns himself.
Glimpses of greatness do not make up for the fact that The Divinity Student feels like a waste of time. This was on my radar for quite a while, so my disappointment is deep.
Glimpses of greatness do not make up for the fact that The Divinity Student feels like a waste of time. This was on my radar for quite a while, so my disappointment is deep.
November 18, 2024
la parte più bella è stata non capirci una beata sega
March 26, 2011
Acting on recommendations to read this book (from various people who's opinions I respect) I tracked down this book that, so far as I am aware, have never been published in the UK. I think it was worth it.
Inside the cover there is a quotation from the author which says "I've always wanted to write something that would affect my readers like a spell, or a poison, or a drug, or hypnosis." That describes pretty well what the author was attempting to do with this book and I think he was broadly sucessful. As such I feel the reader needs to read this in as few sittings as possible, away from all distractions to alllow oneself to slip into the mode or "hypnotic" state from which this book can be best enjoyed. Unfortunately, that's not usually the way I get to read. I grab small snatches here and there, little and often, usually surrounded by distractions (like on a train or with children shouting in the background) but those times I managed it, my enjoyment increased and my appreciation of what the author was trying to do deepened.
If I had to classify this, I would describe it as surrealist fantasy horror. Many things about this book are unusual. The protagonist for a start. What exactly is a divinity student? And how much of his strange abilities did he aquire from his strange death and resurrection described in the opening chapter or merely from his time at the seminary? Very little about his curious antagonists, hiding behind the tinted windows of cars, is ever explained, nor why they are trying to stand the way of his quest to find out the secret words that, when grasped, will allow him to understand the meaning of the universe.
It's definitely one of those books that will benefit from a re-read or two in order that it's more finer subtleties might be appreciated. And I am also left with a desire to read something else by this author. Recomendations will be welcome.
Inside the cover there is a quotation from the author which says "I've always wanted to write something that would affect my readers like a spell, or a poison, or a drug, or hypnosis." That describes pretty well what the author was attempting to do with this book and I think he was broadly sucessful. As such I feel the reader needs to read this in as few sittings as possible, away from all distractions to alllow oneself to slip into the mode or "hypnotic" state from which this book can be best enjoyed. Unfortunately, that's not usually the way I get to read. I grab small snatches here and there, little and often, usually surrounded by distractions (like on a train or with children shouting in the background) but those times I managed it, my enjoyment increased and my appreciation of what the author was trying to do deepened.
If I had to classify this, I would describe it as surrealist fantasy horror. Many things about this book are unusual. The protagonist for a start. What exactly is a divinity student? And how much of his strange abilities did he aquire from his strange death and resurrection described in the opening chapter or merely from his time at the seminary? Very little about his curious antagonists, hiding behind the tinted windows of cars, is ever explained, nor why they are trying to stand the way of his quest to find out the secret words that, when grasped, will allow him to understand the meaning of the universe.
It's definitely one of those books that will benefit from a re-read or two in order that it's more finer subtleties might be appreciated. And I am also left with a desire to read something else by this author. Recomendations will be welcome.
February 10, 2010
This is the most hallucinogenic novel I've read in a long time, perhaps ever, putting a strong emphasis on "weird" in "weird-fiction." If you can handle the lack of logic and linear plot, the language and imagery is fantastic, creating not just a brilliant atmosphere but an actual narrative.
You know those nights that you have lengthy, complicated and disturbing dreams, and you woke up know that you've spent the last 6 hours inside a complex and involved story, but the second you try to tell someone about it you realize you can't remember a single detail; then, for the rest of the day, you have that nagging feeling that you are forgetting something, or that there was something terrible important you were supposed to remember, then you realize its just the residue of the dream drifting around in the back of your mind? That is what every page of this book feels like.
All the review which say this book sacrificed character and plot for atmosphere are partially right -- the tone and feel of the book is much more important than strict characterization and story-telling, but that's a matter of taste. However, I think those reviews do Cisco a disservice, because there is a plot; it might be hallucinogenic and nightmarish, but one central character travels to a physical location and then pursues one consistent goal. This is not "Finnegan's Wake," or even "Dhalgren," more "City of Saints and Madmen" or "Viriconium." The Divinity Student kept me mesmerized, and I'll certainly seek out more of Cisco's books.
You know those nights that you have lengthy, complicated and disturbing dreams, and you woke up know that you've spent the last 6 hours inside a complex and involved story, but the second you try to tell someone about it you realize you can't remember a single detail; then, for the rest of the day, you have that nagging feeling that you are forgetting something, or that there was something terrible important you were supposed to remember, then you realize its just the residue of the dream drifting around in the back of your mind? That is what every page of this book feels like.
All the review which say this book sacrificed character and plot for atmosphere are partially right -- the tone and feel of the book is much more important than strict characterization and story-telling, but that's a matter of taste. However, I think those reviews do Cisco a disservice, because there is a plot; it might be hallucinogenic and nightmarish, but one central character travels to a physical location and then pursues one consistent goal. This is not "Finnegan's Wake," or even "Dhalgren," more "City of Saints and Madmen" or "Viriconium." The Divinity Student kept me mesmerized, and I'll certainly seek out more of Cisco's books.
August 18, 2016
While still enmeshed in a kind of genre mechanics, this excels in the genuine invention of many of its particulars. I especially enjoy that the occult here lives in language itself -- lost words, secret dictionaries, a language that provides the only access to higher understanding. In these respects, it's a little like Delany's pulpy-philosophic linguistic sci-fi Babel-17. This was legitimately even weirder, with descriptive flights bordering on the waking dreams of automatic writing, but also felt less held together by the weight of its underlying ideas. This was Cisco's first novel, so I expect he only gets better and more individualized from here, though.
May 31, 2022
Exactly the type of weird fantasy energy I've been craving lately, it has a similar sense of seemingly endlessly flourishing idiosyncratic worldbuilding and imagination as a Mieville or a Barker but in structure and development is much more properly strange in terms of the uncanny sensations it conjures, making it land somewhere between kitchen sink dark fantasy and off-kilter bizarro fiction in the realm of a Ligotti or a Schulz. Kinda unfurls like a psychedelic weird-horror magical realism, imagery and sensations coalescing over each other like a kaleidoscope of drugged out genre fiction mechanisms entwining within one another effortlessly. Smoothly crafted with beautiful prose that unfolds like a river of language while avoiding direct indulgence in tropes while skirting juuuuuust close enough to their edges that it satisfies both my literary and fantasy loving sides alike, this definitely felt like a novel tailor made for my tastes.
The narrative concerns the titular Divinity Student, an otherwise unnamed scholar who is revived from death after a lightning strike by a shadowy organization of scholars and sent on an odyssey to a mystical desert city called San Veneficio, where he's to reconstruct a mythical catalog of unknown words whose "definitions" are entire small stories in themselves. Along the way, he's haggled by the bizarre sights and customs of the city around him as well as various idiosyncratic inhabitants on a quest to find the secret things hidden within language itself, in a narrative that becomes increasingly surreal and entropic the further The Divinity Student goes to fulfill his mission. This seems very much concerned with the idea that language indeed has tangible effects on reality beyond the abstract nature of its own existence as something we interpret; the deeper the Divinity Student's quest takes him into his linguistic obsessions the more his own reality crumbles and splinters until it's something unrecognizable and the lucid susurrations of the prose match the metamorphosis of the narrative in real-time that creates this really naturalistic sense of psychedelia and sort of being subsumed into a transcendental state of being. The setting adds further tautness to this atmosphere; the city of San Veneficio is weird and off-kilter in its presentation enough that it immediately suggests pure fantasy, but there's references to real world ethnicities and places and concepts while also being suffused with the unreal, making it feel like some kind of far future or undocumented civilization at the margins of the industrialized world.
"Psychedelic" is not only an applicable term for the surface level events itself though, I realized about halfway through that in many ways this feels like a drug narrative via an unorthodox framing in a lot of ways. In order to understand the language he is seeking to study, our protagonist becomes obsessed with the transference of his consciousness into other bodies who knew more of it than he, gaining access to others' subjective thoughts and experiences by dipping their brains in formaldehyde [yeah]. The Divinity Student indulges in this quest for truth via what are essentially mind-altering substances and the more he does it, the more his tolerance builds, always seeking more until the point where he sweeps the only two people he could have called friends in the city into being involved in robbing the graves of former scholars to ingest their Brain Juices™, and rather than humbling himself before the enlightening power of this process he instead indulges it at reckless abandon. It kinda feels like it's poking fun at the whole "enlightened psychonaut" type who bites off more than they can chew when using powerful chemical agents, and while the tone of the book is overall consistently stoical and serious in that decidedly Gothic fashion, this interpretation definitely helped me see a bit of the wild understated humor on display here, especially during the more out-there sequences.
I had a lot of fun with this one; it's wildly creative and beautifully written, and its nature as a debut makes the prospect of more Cisco even more promising for me. I enjoyed it more than his collection "Secret Hours" which was my first foray into his works and while it was good it did not cohere as well as this one, but I have reason to believe his writing only got continuously tighter from here. Perhaps what I enjoyed most was its implications that the fantastic, awesome and mythic lies in language itself; that we can tap into a vast reality beyond ourselves from words, even when words themselves are our own inventions, and that this vast and awesome yet terrifying ability lays quite literally beyond our very own fingertips. I own "Animal Money" but think I'm going to bridge the gap with something a bit shorter before I take it on, most likely "The Narrator".
"Ghosts boil in the air, rustling and crying, libations fall to them on the ground, witch lights glimmer for them, alighting on branches turning trees into candelabras.
Again, he repeats the phrase.
The drumming fattens and shakes the earth, timbre deepening, growing empty and vibrant at the core, each tone dwindles to a buzzing at the corner of hearing just before the next is struck, and faster.
Again, he repeats the phrase."
The narrative concerns the titular Divinity Student, an otherwise unnamed scholar who is revived from death after a lightning strike by a shadowy organization of scholars and sent on an odyssey to a mystical desert city called San Veneficio, where he's to reconstruct a mythical catalog of unknown words whose "definitions" are entire small stories in themselves. Along the way, he's haggled by the bizarre sights and customs of the city around him as well as various idiosyncratic inhabitants on a quest to find the secret things hidden within language itself, in a narrative that becomes increasingly surreal and entropic the further The Divinity Student goes to fulfill his mission. This seems very much concerned with the idea that language indeed has tangible effects on reality beyond the abstract nature of its own existence as something we interpret; the deeper the Divinity Student's quest takes him into his linguistic obsessions the more his own reality crumbles and splinters until it's something unrecognizable and the lucid susurrations of the prose match the metamorphosis of the narrative in real-time that creates this really naturalistic sense of psychedelia and sort of being subsumed into a transcendental state of being. The setting adds further tautness to this atmosphere; the city of San Veneficio is weird and off-kilter in its presentation enough that it immediately suggests pure fantasy, but there's references to real world ethnicities and places and concepts while also being suffused with the unreal, making it feel like some kind of far future or undocumented civilization at the margins of the industrialized world.
"Psychedelic" is not only an applicable term for the surface level events itself though, I realized about halfway through that in many ways this feels like a drug narrative via an unorthodox framing in a lot of ways. In order to understand the language he is seeking to study, our protagonist becomes obsessed with the transference of his consciousness into other bodies who knew more of it than he, gaining access to others' subjective thoughts and experiences by dipping their brains in formaldehyde [yeah]. The Divinity Student indulges in this quest for truth via what are essentially mind-altering substances and the more he does it, the more his tolerance builds, always seeking more until the point where he sweeps the only two people he could have called friends in the city into being involved in robbing the graves of former scholars to ingest their Brain Juices™, and rather than humbling himself before the enlightening power of this process he instead indulges it at reckless abandon. It kinda feels like it's poking fun at the whole "enlightened psychonaut" type who bites off more than they can chew when using powerful chemical agents, and while the tone of the book is overall consistently stoical and serious in that decidedly Gothic fashion, this interpretation definitely helped me see a bit of the wild understated humor on display here, especially during the more out-there sequences.
I had a lot of fun with this one; it's wildly creative and beautifully written, and its nature as a debut makes the prospect of more Cisco even more promising for me. I enjoyed it more than his collection "Secret Hours" which was my first foray into his works and while it was good it did not cohere as well as this one, but I have reason to believe his writing only got continuously tighter from here. Perhaps what I enjoyed most was its implications that the fantastic, awesome and mythic lies in language itself; that we can tap into a vast reality beyond ourselves from words, even when words themselves are our own inventions, and that this vast and awesome yet terrifying ability lays quite literally beyond our very own fingertips. I own "Animal Money" but think I'm going to bridge the gap with something a bit shorter before I take it on, most likely "The Narrator".
"Ghosts boil in the air, rustling and crying, libations fall to them on the ground, witch lights glimmer for them, alighting on branches turning trees into candelabras.
Again, he repeats the phrase.
The drumming fattens and shakes the earth, timbre deepening, growing empty and vibrant at the core, each tone dwindles to a buzzing at the corner of hearing just before the next is struck, and faster.
Again, he repeats the phrase."
May 15, 2024
3,75 / 5
El libro comienza con el Estudiante de la Divinidad, un ser sin nombre que resulta alcanzado por un rayo en una tormenta en medio del bosque y es devuelto a la vida por unas criaturas sobrenaturales, que lo abren a la mitad y lo (re)llenan de textos arcanos. Ahora, renacido como una especie de gólem, es enviado a la ciudad de San Veneficio para convertirse en un buscador de palabras a tiempo completo. Sin embargo, una misión secreta, desconocida para él mismo hasta que llega a la ciudad, lo acecha. Debe recuperar un catalogo perdido de palabras prohibidas, conocido como la Égloga, entrando en las mentes de los muertos y antiguos autores de dicho catálogo. Sin embargo, el precio a pagar por el conocimiento oculto será el sacrificio de su propia cordura. Al final se ve reducido a un caminante entre mundos, una criatura que no es ni de carne ni de espíritu, rellena de papel y preservada con formaldehído, un zombi ideado por él mismo.
Leer a Michael Cisco es como vivir en un sueño perpetuo. Como si fueras el protagonista de una película de David Lynch. Desde la primera frase se siente conectar con el cerebro una extraña energía de fantasía surrealista que se comunica con nuestro organismo, que lo hace palpitar y dudar. Simplemente, no sabes lo que pasa. Sencillamente, te subes a la barca y sigues (su) la corriente. Obviamente, no es para todos, como cualquier cosa de este mundo. Es fácil quedarse estancado, perdido buscando el sentido de todo esto, frustrado en un laberinto que no parece tener salida. Pero, amigue, si eres un aventurero de la narrativa, aceptas el misterio y lo extraño cuando surge o te agarras a cualquier clavo ardiendo para vivir algo nuevo, Michael Cisco es para ti. Simplemente, súbete a mi barca y disfrutemos de este hermoso, inventivo y alucinante viaje de El Estudiante de la Divinidad.
La prosa poética y barroca de Cisco son como un hechizo pesadillesco, una especie de alucinación que nos mantiene despiertos y nos lleva de su mano. Tanto como lo hace ya desde su portada en la edición de Dilatando Mentes, a cargo de Ah Taut. Probablemente, capas y capas de significado pueblan el texto, desde espíritus arbóreos y elementos folclóricos hasta símbolos irreconocibles. Es más, no creo que una sola lectura deje absorberlo todo ni sea suficiente. Seguramente, forma parte del encantamiento de Michael Cisco. Las imágenes hermosas, el deambular onírico y abstracto nos dejan conectar con ese personaje sin nombre ni voz propia que seguimos. Las palabras están puestas en la página, pero somos nosotros los que funcionamos como sus conectores y creadores. Desde el principio, queda claro que El estudiante de la Divinidad es un libro que trata del lenguaje, sobre las palabras y lo que pensamos sobre ellas. Sin embargo, mientras tratas de conectar todas estas ideas, Cisco te atiborra de palabras e imágenes, disfrutando — y creando— esta poesía visual que nos deja en un estado de coma inducido.
Lo complicado al hablar de El Estudiante de la Divinidad — como ya me sucedió en su momento con El narrador— es hablar realmente del libro. Por que aunque la trama parezca (y sea) simple a primera vista y fácil de explicar, es la experiencia de lectura lo que hace de la novela de Cisco un libro totalmente diferente al resto. Sin embargo, ese juego verbal complejo, donde la imágenes se precipitan y el mundo se construye en la página y mente del lector, es difícil de trasladar si no se experimenta. Realidad, visiones y sueños se combinan en un deambular perpetuo, en una obsesión por los textos y las palabras que siempre esta presente. El mundo creado se fusiona, cambia, se disuelve y luego vuelve a unirse, mientras somos hipnotizados por el camino que debe tomar el Estudiante de la Divinidad y nos guía por los increíbles entornos oníricos y mágicos de San Veneficio. Un libro para experimentar sin nociones preconcebidas, intencionalmente esotérico y surrealista. Cisco no es para todo el mundo, pero si te gusta todo lo que digo, no te lo debes perder. Y espero, de todo corazón, que Dilatando Mentes nos siga trayendo más obras (y joyas) suyas, como The Golem, secuela de esta o Celebrant, una de las que me resulta más atractivas.
El libro comienza con el Estudiante de la Divinidad, un ser sin nombre que resulta alcanzado por un rayo en una tormenta en medio del bosque y es devuelto a la vida por unas criaturas sobrenaturales, que lo abren a la mitad y lo (re)llenan de textos arcanos. Ahora, renacido como una especie de gólem, es enviado a la ciudad de San Veneficio para convertirse en un buscador de palabras a tiempo completo. Sin embargo, una misión secreta, desconocida para él mismo hasta que llega a la ciudad, lo acecha. Debe recuperar un catalogo perdido de palabras prohibidas, conocido como la Égloga, entrando en las mentes de los muertos y antiguos autores de dicho catálogo. Sin embargo, el precio a pagar por el conocimiento oculto será el sacrificio de su propia cordura. Al final se ve reducido a un caminante entre mundos, una criatura que no es ni de carne ni de espíritu, rellena de papel y preservada con formaldehído, un zombi ideado por él mismo.
Leer a Michael Cisco es como vivir en un sueño perpetuo. Como si fueras el protagonista de una película de David Lynch. Desde la primera frase se siente conectar con el cerebro una extraña energía de fantasía surrealista que se comunica con nuestro organismo, que lo hace palpitar y dudar. Simplemente, no sabes lo que pasa. Sencillamente, te subes a la barca y sigues (su) la corriente. Obviamente, no es para todos, como cualquier cosa de este mundo. Es fácil quedarse estancado, perdido buscando el sentido de todo esto, frustrado en un laberinto que no parece tener salida. Pero, amigue, si eres un aventurero de la narrativa, aceptas el misterio y lo extraño cuando surge o te agarras a cualquier clavo ardiendo para vivir algo nuevo, Michael Cisco es para ti. Simplemente, súbete a mi barca y disfrutemos de este hermoso, inventivo y alucinante viaje de El Estudiante de la Divinidad.
La prosa poética y barroca de Cisco son como un hechizo pesadillesco, una especie de alucinación que nos mantiene despiertos y nos lleva de su mano. Tanto como lo hace ya desde su portada en la edición de Dilatando Mentes, a cargo de Ah Taut. Probablemente, capas y capas de significado pueblan el texto, desde espíritus arbóreos y elementos folclóricos hasta símbolos irreconocibles. Es más, no creo que una sola lectura deje absorberlo todo ni sea suficiente. Seguramente, forma parte del encantamiento de Michael Cisco. Las imágenes hermosas, el deambular onírico y abstracto nos dejan conectar con ese personaje sin nombre ni voz propia que seguimos. Las palabras están puestas en la página, pero somos nosotros los que funcionamos como sus conectores y creadores. Desde el principio, queda claro que El estudiante de la Divinidad es un libro que trata del lenguaje, sobre las palabras y lo que pensamos sobre ellas. Sin embargo, mientras tratas de conectar todas estas ideas, Cisco te atiborra de palabras e imágenes, disfrutando — y creando— esta poesía visual que nos deja en un estado de coma inducido.
Lo complicado al hablar de El Estudiante de la Divinidad — como ya me sucedió en su momento con El narrador— es hablar realmente del libro. Por que aunque la trama parezca (y sea) simple a primera vista y fácil de explicar, es la experiencia de lectura lo que hace de la novela de Cisco un libro totalmente diferente al resto. Sin embargo, ese juego verbal complejo, donde la imágenes se precipitan y el mundo se construye en la página y mente del lector, es difícil de trasladar si no se experimenta. Realidad, visiones y sueños se combinan en un deambular perpetuo, en una obsesión por los textos y las palabras que siempre esta presente. El mundo creado se fusiona, cambia, se disuelve y luego vuelve a unirse, mientras somos hipnotizados por el camino que debe tomar el Estudiante de la Divinidad y nos guía por los increíbles entornos oníricos y mágicos de San Veneficio. Un libro para experimentar sin nociones preconcebidas, intencionalmente esotérico y surrealista. Cisco no es para todo el mundo, pero si te gusta todo lo que digo, no te lo debes perder. Y espero, de todo corazón, que Dilatando Mentes nos siga trayendo más obras (y joyas) suyas, como The Golem, secuela de esta o Celebrant, una de las que me resulta más atractivas.
April 3, 2011
I continue to read Cisco's books despite the fact that they have left me cold on numerous occasions (San Venefico Canon, The Tyrant, The Traitor). And for a couple reasons I come back for more when his next book is released. See, I remember reading about him before I actually read him and what the reviewers had to say about The Divinity Student with its surreal, dreamlike influence over the reader, really clinched it for me and I wanted to take a dip into that weirdo fantasy haziness that was described so effusively by them. I wanted to share in that experience. Even now, I can see on GR that a collection of short stories entitled Secret Hours are out on the market and I am contemplating the merits of giving him yet another go. Thing is, I can sort of see what others are talking about when I read his books. I feel like the next time - that time tittering on an edge which I can almost touch - things will click, I just need give him another shot. My problem has been that I can't become immersed in these worlds. It doesn't pull me in like with other readers who really enjoy what he is doing. The wall remains intact throughout the entire reading experience and halfway through the book becomes a chore to just finish it. All said, he is unique and worth a look.
September 2, 2017
This book is short and to the point, which I'm definitely into, but in terms of "New Weird" (which this qualifies in a sense even though it's older), why this works is the way it builds toward the reveals. You meet the main character, and piece by piece drips out until you see the full picture as to what is happening. And it's wonderful and grotesque and so well put together that it was difficult for me not to really just love what was going on.
Closer to a 4.5, as it definitely isn't perfect, but the amount of raves this book has gotten is well-deserved. If you like strange stuff, check it.
Closer to a 4.5, as it definitely isn't perfect, but the amount of raves this book has gotten is well-deserved. If you like strange stuff, check it.
October 26, 2024
La verità è che non ci ho capito niente e odio sentirmi stupida ✨
December 11, 2009
Michael Cisco, The Divinity Student (Buzzcity Press, 1999)
I had somehow gotten it in my head that The Divinity Student was a horror novel. I have no idea how that happened, for it is anything but. This is a fantasy, almost a steampunk novel, that put me in mind more than anything of K. J. Bishop or Ekaterina Sedia, but with the obsession with language more commonly found in Catherynne Valente or China Mieville. (And if you're a fan of any of the above and haven't discovered Michael Cisco yet, do so at your earliest opportunity.) It is beautiful, fascinating, thought-provoking.
As we open, the nameless Divinity Student of the title is struck by lightning and killed, but we soon see that this is some sort of common (or at least understood) ritual in this world; the body is returned to the seminary, eviscerated, filled with pages ripped from sacred books, and plunged into water. (I now want to be buried like this.) He then returns to consciousness and is given an assignment by Fasvergil, the head of the seminary; he is to go to San Veneficio, a nearby city, and get work as a word-finder while he waits for further instructions. When he gets them, that's truly amazing (and it's there the plot really kicks off), but just think about the idea of a world where you can go to a city and find work as a word-finder.
There are so many wonderful things to say about this book that I'm not even sure where to begin. There are some I can't talk about, because we'd be getting far into spoiler territory, but the writing is just phenomenal; Michael Cisco has a love affair with the language, and it shows. The downside to that is that typographical and proofreading errors made by the press tend to come through more in books like this (and it didn't help that this was the second book in a week that used the odd, but somehow appropriate, phrase “door jam”; as it is spelled right in other places in the book, I'm giving Cisco the benefit of the doubt and blaming the press), but that's not something for which I can blame the author. And the plot here is one of the most original, and pleasurable, I've come across in years.
The book is not perfect, though if you're going to err, better to do it this way than the other; if anything, it's shorter than it should be. There are a few chapters that begged to be further fleshed out (“The Final Interview”, especially, could have been twice as long as it is). Still, there's so much about this book to love that you can't go wrong. This is by far one of the best books I've read this year, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Find it and read it as soon as you possibly can. **** ½
I had somehow gotten it in my head that The Divinity Student was a horror novel. I have no idea how that happened, for it is anything but. This is a fantasy, almost a steampunk novel, that put me in mind more than anything of K. J. Bishop or Ekaterina Sedia, but with the obsession with language more commonly found in Catherynne Valente or China Mieville. (And if you're a fan of any of the above and haven't discovered Michael Cisco yet, do so at your earliest opportunity.) It is beautiful, fascinating, thought-provoking.
As we open, the nameless Divinity Student of the title is struck by lightning and killed, but we soon see that this is some sort of common (or at least understood) ritual in this world; the body is returned to the seminary, eviscerated, filled with pages ripped from sacred books, and plunged into water. (I now want to be buried like this.) He then returns to consciousness and is given an assignment by Fasvergil, the head of the seminary; he is to go to San Veneficio, a nearby city, and get work as a word-finder while he waits for further instructions. When he gets them, that's truly amazing (and it's there the plot really kicks off), but just think about the idea of a world where you can go to a city and find work as a word-finder.
There are so many wonderful things to say about this book that I'm not even sure where to begin. There are some I can't talk about, because we'd be getting far into spoiler territory, but the writing is just phenomenal; Michael Cisco has a love affair with the language, and it shows. The downside to that is that typographical and proofreading errors made by the press tend to come through more in books like this (and it didn't help that this was the second book in a week that used the odd, but somehow appropriate, phrase “door jam”; as it is spelled right in other places in the book, I'm giving Cisco the benefit of the doubt and blaming the press), but that's not something for which I can blame the author. And the plot here is one of the most original, and pleasurable, I've come across in years.
The book is not perfect, though if you're going to err, better to do it this way than the other; if anything, it's shorter than it should be. There are a few chapters that begged to be further fleshed out (“The Final Interview”, especially, could have been twice as long as it is). Still, there's so much about this book to love that you can't go wrong. This is by far one of the best books I've read this year, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Find it and read it as soon as you possibly can. **** ½
December 10, 2015
There's a lot of overused words I could use to describe this: dream-like, hallucinogenic, surreal, bizarro. I can compare this with other writers: Bruno Schulz, Thomas Ligotti, Eric Basso. There's others that come to mind but once you list so many you might as well just say that Cisco has his OWN style. And it's true, there's really nothing quite like this, you just have to read it for yourself.
One thing to realize is that you're not going to understand everything that's going on here. Just let the experience wash over you and enjoy it. I read this book in one evening/night and although I wouldn't say you have to do that, I think the manic and building nature of the story benefits from it.
This book has it's share of humor early on particularly where the absurdity becomes downright hilarious at times, especially with the colorful characters involved. But half through though things get more serious, and begin to take on a darker character. Set in a searingly hot, labyrinthine city which seems to be in a state disintegration, Cisco throws things into high gear with increasingly disturbing imagery.
I think what I liked most about this novel was it's entirely unpredictable, it breaks the mold as far as weird fiction is concerned. If no book has surprised you lately, give this a shot. I will freely admit this isn't for everyone, come with an open mind and be prepared for in-depth reading. This isn't a casual read, nor would I immediately jump into another Cisco novel, but I certainly look forward to doing it again.
One thing to realize is that you're not going to understand everything that's going on here. Just let the experience wash over you and enjoy it. I read this book in one evening/night and although I wouldn't say you have to do that, I think the manic and building nature of the story benefits from it.
This book has it's share of humor early on particularly where the absurdity becomes downright hilarious at times, especially with the colorful characters involved. But half through though things get more serious, and begin to take on a darker character. Set in a searingly hot, labyrinthine city which seems to be in a state disintegration, Cisco throws things into high gear with increasingly disturbing imagery.
I think what I liked most about this novel was it's entirely unpredictable, it breaks the mold as far as weird fiction is concerned. If no book has surprised you lately, give this a shot. I will freely admit this isn't for everyone, come with an open mind and be prepared for in-depth reading. This isn't a casual read, nor would I immediately jump into another Cisco novel, but I certainly look forward to doing it again.
Read
August 5, 2023"I am nothing but a collection of pages from books..."
I interviewed Michael Cisco here: https://thecollidescope.com/2023/06/3...
I interviewed Michael Cisco here: https://thecollidescope.com/2023/06/3...
June 12, 2024
Cisco's imagery is hovering near the top of the list of the best I have ever read. They come across fully developed in my mind's eye as if I was watching a feed directly from Cisco's own. His words, when read out loud, are melodious and pleasant. His ideas, sadly, never fully flesh out, he leans heavily on the crutch of the grand unknowable. He dives too deeply into it, using ridiculous phrases to perversely get his point across, when there simply isn't one.
Oh, have you had nightmarish visions of the floating void behind the illusion that is reality? Phantasms of cities in ruin, buckled glass, tinges of otherworld colors seeping under insomnia wracked eyelids. The howled hissing screams of echoes embraced your bifurcated sense of self and wrapped it in a cocoon of despair?
How nice. Please transcribe the hellishness beyond definition the best you can and put it on the pile with the others.
It causes me to roll my eyes and stick out my tongue at genius being abused this way.
I wonder if he can drop the facade and do what director David Lynch did when he made The Straight Story. I bet it would be wonderful.
Oh, have you had nightmarish visions of the floating void behind the illusion that is reality? Phantasms of cities in ruin, buckled glass, tinges of otherworld colors seeping under insomnia wracked eyelids. The howled hissing screams of echoes embraced your bifurcated sense of self and wrapped it in a cocoon of despair?
How nice. Please transcribe the hellishness beyond definition the best you can and put it on the pile with the others.
It causes me to roll my eyes and stick out my tongue at genius being abused this way.
I wonder if he can drop the facade and do what director David Lynch did when he made The Straight Story. I bet it would be wonderful.
July 17, 2012
If only I could give this book six or seven stars. It is an amazing read, and beautifully weird. I don't know who the Divinity Student is any more now that I've finished the book than I did before I began reading about him, but that is the beauty of this book: knowing him is impossible. He is unreal; he is filled with words, not a heart or lungs or a gallbladder, as the following quotation makes clear:
He is not a real person, so knowing him, as is desirable in most literature, is impossible. He is a character in a book, which enables the book to be whatever it wants to be.
This results in something completely unreal. Throughout the book are passages devoid of reason, such as in the following:
Taking this at face value, the reality of this passage is impossible. The description suggests that a "dry gasp of formaldehyde," presumably a gas, contains "a hundred gaping blue faces," among other things "stirring along the ragged edges of the Divinity Student's breath" (123). Can something that is presumably a gas logically contain blue faces? Is this logical or possible? Can breath contain visual imagery? Is this something even imaginable? It is not, yet this is possible because The Divinity Student is a book, not a description of reality. Its main character is a character, not a fictionalization of human beings. All of which makes the book beautifully weird.
Quickly they bring him inside, lay him across two sawhorses and start cutting at him--they gut him like a fish, cut open from throat to waist, red hands pull his ribs apart, head and shoulders hanging down, his arms lying flat on the ground, tugged back and forth as they empty him out. They dump his contents cooked and steaming on the floor, and bring up stacks of books and manila folders, tearing out pages and shuffling out sheets of paper, all covered with writing, stuffing them inside, tamping them down behind his ribs and crushing them together in his abdomen. (8)
He is not a real person, so knowing him, as is desirable in most literature, is impossible. He is a character in a book, which enables the book to be whatever it wants to be.
This results in something completely unreal. Throughout the book are passages devoid of reason, such as in the following:
A single dry gasp of formaldehyde unfurls from between the Divinity Student's lips, and in it boil a hundred gaping blue faces, and infinitely silent watching things, and many other ones stirring along the ragged edges of the Divinity Student's breath, and more--a deep empty nothing, spreading behind the walls and surging through the floorboards and shimmering inside him. (123)
Taking this at face value, the reality of this passage is impossible. The description suggests that a "dry gasp of formaldehyde," presumably a gas, contains "a hundred gaping blue faces," among other things "stirring along the ragged edges of the Divinity Student's breath" (123). Can something that is presumably a gas logically contain blue faces? Is this logical or possible? Can breath contain visual imagery? Is this something even imaginable? It is not, yet this is possible because The Divinity Student is a book, not a description of reality. Its main character is a character, not a fictionalization of human beings. All of which makes the book beautifully weird.
October 11, 2019
A weird love affair with words
This book feels on some levels like a deep love affair with words and texts and language, although it’s hard to tell if the odd moments of fragmented sentences and full stops in odd places are deliberate or just a mistake in the edition I read.
The sentences can be up to a paragraph long, and the “less is more” adage hasn’t bothered Cisco much, so if spare poetic prose is your thing, this may not be to your taste.
I found it the book equivalent of watching an aquarium: the plot is simple and kicks in about halfway through, but you don’t need to know (or understand) what’s going on to enjoy the immersion, and in some ways concentrating too hard on it is going to spoil it. It was the perfect thing to read on the train home after work and let it trigger random thoughts about my own relationship with words & texts, things I don’t get much time to think about these days...
The book itself centres the nameless Divinity Student, struck by lightning in a storm in Ch 1 & brought back to life by eldritch creatures who open him up and stuff him full of ancient texts. He’s re-birthed as a Weird Golem type person, and sent off to San Veneficio to become a word-finder. He is meant to be undercover and is trying to recover a lost catalogue of forbidden (?) words, the Eclogue, destroyed & lost.
He learns how to enter the minds of dead creatures via a memorable wtf moment with magic & formaldehyde, and demonic cars try to stop him in a man versus machine sub-plot.
As the plot goes,that’s all of it, but the plot itself isn’t really the point of the book and it’s not really possible to “spoil” it in the traditional sense, because ... there’s nothing to spoil?!
It’s very fantastical, abstract, full of magical realism techniques like the way ‘reality’, ‘visions’ & ‘dreams’ are mashed together seamlessly so that those categories break down and you’re never sure what’s ‘real’ and what isn’t. It’s a story that made me think mainly about obsession with texts & words - sacred texts, in particular - and of being stuffed full of other people’s canonical texts, other people’s language, and struggling to find words and a voice of my own.
Miss Woodwind, the master word finder, has her own voice and that’s why she’s so good at finding other people’s words... she wants the Divinity Student to drink some water (a cleansing, purifying, refreshing thing, with associations of forward movement etc) but he wants to drink/inhale atomised formaldehyde (preservative fluid) and stagnate in the memories of the dead and re-live their texts and words instead.
I suppose it left me with a feeling that there were so many layers to this that one sitting wouldn’t be enough to get all of them. The tree spirits and their porcelain mouths, the folkloric elements, the monitor lizards and their reflective eyes like stars in the desert... there’s some gorgeous imagery here that I really enjoyed.
I guess the main questions I’m left with (apart from “what did I just read? What happened? What’s going on?”) are:
-how do you deal with being stuffed with other people’s views of “canonical” texts?
-Which texts were foundational for me, that are now part of my cultural, emotional, psychological makeup? Do I need to address/dismantle some of this?
-How do you find your own voice if you’re obsessed with other people’s?
-What words/texts give me “life”? Are they mine, as in, did I choose them, or were they given to me? Is that necessarily bad?
I liked the dreamlike, abstracted wandering through these types of questions and the edge-of-madness themes that come from following an obsessive character without a name or a voice of his own.
I definitely see why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I’m giving it 4 stars anyway.
This book feels on some levels like a deep love affair with words and texts and language, although it’s hard to tell if the odd moments of fragmented sentences and full stops in odd places are deliberate or just a mistake in the edition I read.
The sentences can be up to a paragraph long, and the “less is more” adage hasn’t bothered Cisco much, so if spare poetic prose is your thing, this may not be to your taste.
I found it the book equivalent of watching an aquarium: the plot is simple and kicks in about halfway through, but you don’t need to know (or understand) what’s going on to enjoy the immersion, and in some ways concentrating too hard on it is going to spoil it. It was the perfect thing to read on the train home after work and let it trigger random thoughts about my own relationship with words & texts, things I don’t get much time to think about these days...
The book itself centres the nameless Divinity Student, struck by lightning in a storm in Ch 1 & brought back to life by eldritch creatures who open him up and stuff him full of ancient texts. He’s re-birthed as a Weird Golem type person, and sent off to San Veneficio to become a word-finder. He is meant to be undercover and is trying to recover a lost catalogue of forbidden (?) words, the Eclogue, destroyed & lost.
He learns how to enter the minds of dead creatures via a memorable wtf moment with magic & formaldehyde, and demonic cars try to stop him in a man versus machine sub-plot.
As the plot goes,that’s all of it, but the plot itself isn’t really the point of the book and it’s not really possible to “spoil” it in the traditional sense, because ... there’s nothing to spoil?!
It’s very fantastical, abstract, full of magical realism techniques like the way ‘reality’, ‘visions’ & ‘dreams’ are mashed together seamlessly so that those categories break down and you’re never sure what’s ‘real’ and what isn’t. It’s a story that made me think mainly about obsession with texts & words - sacred texts, in particular - and of being stuffed full of other people’s canonical texts, other people’s language, and struggling to find words and a voice of my own.
Miss Woodwind, the master word finder, has her own voice and that’s why she’s so good at finding other people’s words... she wants the Divinity Student to drink some water (a cleansing, purifying, refreshing thing, with associations of forward movement etc) but he wants to drink/inhale atomised formaldehyde (preservative fluid) and stagnate in the memories of the dead and re-live their texts and words instead.
I suppose it left me with a feeling that there were so many layers to this that one sitting wouldn’t be enough to get all of them. The tree spirits and their porcelain mouths, the folkloric elements, the monitor lizards and their reflective eyes like stars in the desert... there’s some gorgeous imagery here that I really enjoyed.
I guess the main questions I’m left with (apart from “what did I just read? What happened? What’s going on?”) are:
-how do you deal with being stuffed with other people’s views of “canonical” texts?
-Which texts were foundational for me, that are now part of my cultural, emotional, psychological makeup? Do I need to address/dismantle some of this?
-How do you find your own voice if you’re obsessed with other people’s?
-What words/texts give me “life”? Are they mine, as in, did I choose them, or were they given to me? Is that necessarily bad?
I liked the dreamlike, abstracted wandering through these types of questions and the edge-of-madness themes that come from following an obsessive character without a name or a voice of his own.
I definitely see why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I’m giving it 4 stars anyway.
October 15, 2019
Color me disappointed. I recommended this book to the Weird Fiction discussion group. It was the winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel of 1999. I enjoyed reading an essay Michael Cisco wrote about the New Weird subgenre he was helping to invent in a New Weird anthology I read earlier this year. I was all prepared to, really wanted to, and fully expected to completely enjoy this novel. Except I didn’t.
I can see why some might get excited about the writing style. There are nice sentences with sophisticated word choices that often make it appear that more is happening than what is being said. In other words, Cisco appears to have style.
There is a vague, bare bones plot that about twenty percent of the words written advances, but there are a lot of loose ends even there too. What divinity school was our protagonist attending? What happened to the three other students/employees (Ollimer, Blandings, Householder) being taught/employed by Mr. Woodwind? Who won the Woodwind vs. Magellan contest to reconstruct the Catalog, and how does Fasvergil fit into that? What does Teo ultimately do with the bodies he obtains for the Divinity Student? This was such a big deal to gain Teo's agreement to help. How do the oros who provide words fit in to this picture? What is their true nature or origin? Why is the Catalog really being reconstructed, and what happens once it is? What is the Divinity Student dying from at the end of the book? The overly long paragraphs? No, wait, that's me dying from them. Why is the Divinity Student’s blood formaldehyde, and what is the benefit or difference in having it so? Why was the one page love scene of some girl bounding across the city rooftops added at the 83-84% point? Miss Woodwind couldn’t be the love interest? We needed a meaningless new character at that late point? What ever happened to Schroeder, the compiler of the Catalog, his assistant Chan, and what were the stakes there?
Did this book win the 1999 Horror book of the year award for new writing because it had no competition?
Probably, these plot holes and unanswered questions don’t matter to those who like the book. They might simply say the atmosphere created was truly beguiling. But was it really? As for me, I just saw overly long paragraphs with pretty verbage that barely managed to partially advance a plot point once in a while. More often, the pretty words raised some new plot point in order to take it nowhere. The long paragraphs, in other words, consisted mostly of red herrings. I give this book two stars, which is more than one star, for almost having a plot about a protagonist trying to find words for the goal of reconstructing a Catalog for some unclear reason. That, and the word choices that created an unusual atmosphere.
I can see why some might get excited about the writing style. There are nice sentences with sophisticated word choices that often make it appear that more is happening than what is being said. In other words, Cisco appears to have style.
There is a vague, bare bones plot that about twenty percent of the words written advances, but there are a lot of loose ends even there too. What divinity school was our protagonist attending? What happened to the three other students/employees (Ollimer, Blandings, Householder) being taught/employed by Mr. Woodwind? Who won the Woodwind vs. Magellan contest to reconstruct the Catalog, and how does Fasvergil fit into that? What does Teo ultimately do with the bodies he obtains for the Divinity Student? This was such a big deal to gain Teo's agreement to help. How do the oros who provide words fit in to this picture? What is their true nature or origin? Why is the Catalog really being reconstructed, and what happens once it is? What is the Divinity Student dying from at the end of the book? The overly long paragraphs? No, wait, that's me dying from them. Why is the Divinity Student’s blood formaldehyde, and what is the benefit or difference in having it so? Why was the one page love scene of some girl bounding across the city rooftops added at the 83-84% point? Miss Woodwind couldn’t be the love interest? We needed a meaningless new character at that late point? What ever happened to Schroeder, the compiler of the Catalog, his assistant Chan, and what were the stakes there?
Did this book win the 1999 Horror book of the year award for new writing because it had no competition?
Probably, these plot holes and unanswered questions don’t matter to those who like the book. They might simply say the atmosphere created was truly beguiling. But was it really? As for me, I just saw overly long paragraphs with pretty verbage that barely managed to partially advance a plot point once in a while. More often, the pretty words raised some new plot point in order to take it nowhere. The long paragraphs, in other words, consisted mostly of red herrings. I give this book two stars, which is more than one star, for almost having a plot about a protagonist trying to find words for the goal of reconstructing a Catalog for some unclear reason. That, and the word choices that created an unusual atmosphere.
September 29, 2024
Lo studente del divino è il gioco malsano del suo autore, Michael Cisco, un viaggio astratto in una dimensione fantastica che vive di regole tutte sue.
Anche la scrittura di Cisco vive di regole strettamente personali: è fortemente descrittiva, astratta, caotica, passa da una visione all'altra nella stessa frase, ti sfida sempre a stargli dietro. Il romanzo è quindi una sequenza lynchiana di dense immagini impalpabili: quando pensi di aver afferrato uno schema o un quadro, ecco che questo perde i contorni e si trasforma in qualcos'altro. E il libro è un corpo mutaforme sempre in movimento, una danza marionettistica difficile da digerire.
Cisco sembra avere un'idea di dove andare a parare ma il lettore a un certo punto si perde insieme al protagonista, una vera marionetta nelle mani di chissà chi.
Troppo indefinito, con tante parole ma anche poco da raccontare, ed è un gran peccato, un'occasione mancata, un autore bravo a metà.
Lasciate stare la copertina da dark academia, ci sarebbe stata bene sul Fabbricante di lacrime, non ha alcun senso rispetto al target a cui punta questo libro, un target veramente tanto ristretto. Mercurio ha avuto la sua dose di coraggio ma è innegabile che la confezione tragga in inganno.
Un esercizio di stile, uno scrittore abile, ma un'ottima scrittura è quella che sa alternate densità e rarefazione, cosa che Cisco non fa mai in 200 pagine.
Anche la scrittura di Cisco vive di regole strettamente personali: è fortemente descrittiva, astratta, caotica, passa da una visione all'altra nella stessa frase, ti sfida sempre a stargli dietro. Il romanzo è quindi una sequenza lynchiana di dense immagini impalpabili: quando pensi di aver afferrato uno schema o un quadro, ecco che questo perde i contorni e si trasforma in qualcos'altro. E il libro è un corpo mutaforme sempre in movimento, una danza marionettistica difficile da digerire.
Cisco sembra avere un'idea di dove andare a parare ma il lettore a un certo punto si perde insieme al protagonista, una vera marionetta nelle mani di chissà chi.
Troppo indefinito, con tante parole ma anche poco da raccontare, ed è un gran peccato, un'occasione mancata, un autore bravo a metà.
Lasciate stare la copertina da dark academia, ci sarebbe stata bene sul Fabbricante di lacrime, non ha alcun senso rispetto al target a cui punta questo libro, un target veramente tanto ristretto. Mercurio ha avuto la sua dose di coraggio ma è innegabile che la confezione tragga in inganno.
Un esercizio di stile, uno scrittore abile, ma un'ottima scrittura è quella che sa alternate densità e rarefazione, cosa che Cisco non fa mai in 200 pagine.
February 13, 2023
This book was foggy, hallucinogenic, dream-like, bizarre, sometimes confusing, always fantastic. Fiction about words and language and their power and looking for new/lost/unknowable words and cars being demons and butcher shops and flying and confusion and clarity (mostly the lack thereof) and just fantastic imagery. I'm not good at writing coherent, useful reviews about even mundane sci-fi/fantasy/weird fiction, let alone this...but I think this book has changed me, for the better, for the weirder. Michael Cisco is a wonderful, if definitely very niche, writer. I doubt I'll read any books by any other authors that I would say fit in the same sub-bin within the Weird Fiction bin. His is a unique style, though I can't always place why. Not a book for everyone, but if you're the kind of person who will enjoy it, you'll probably love it and fly through it.
Edit: I forgot to include surreal in my descriptors at the beginning. See what I mean about not writing good reviews? That's probably the most important adjective to include.
Edit: I forgot to include surreal in my descriptors at the beginning. See what I mean about not writing good reviews? That's probably the most important adjective to include.
March 31, 2021
Michael Cisco's "The Divinity Student" is a challenging read, in the best way possible. Even if the story is pretty straightforward, the many digressions and beautiful poetic style turn it into a maze, with many dead ends and false openings. I will not talk about the precise plot, because I will let the reader discover it, but it is a dark bildungsroman, set in a lo-fi fantasy world and city. Cisco has been compared with Kafka, Ligotti and Borges, but, to me, perhaps because I'm French, I found many affinities with Raymond Roussel and André Daumal, for the mystery and its initiation aspects, and Georges Bataille and Octave Mirbeau for the exotic cruelty. A cruel fable about knowledge and mysticism, this novel can be read and interpreted in many ways, none contradicting the other, and maybe even feeding each other with their possibilities. Michael Cisco is definitely one of the most original - and demanding -voices in American literature right now. I have spoken.
July 19, 2007
Best . . .
.. . opening scene .. .
. . . amazing city . . .
... man who walks into town . . .
.. . use of formaldehyde in fiction . . .
... EVAR.
.. . opening scene .. .
. . . amazing city . . .
... man who walks into town . . .
.. . use of formaldehyde in fiction . . .
... EVAR.
September 6, 2024
Complesso e terribilmente appagante.
Non leggerai facilmente qualcosa di questo tipo.
Non leggerai facilmente qualcosa di questo tipo.
dnf
October 9, 2024Ho deciso di abbandonarlo (almeno per ora) perché, detto in tutta sincerità, non ci stavo capendo molto; probabilmente è proprio questo il punto del romanzo, creare una narrazione quasi allucinogena in cui seguiamo il protagonista alle prese con un mondo strano fatto di personaggi ed avvenimenti ancora più strani, solo che probabilmente non è il libro adatto a me, capita 🤷.
June 21, 2025
Vorrei iniziare con una piccola considerazione che si è formata nella mia mente mentre leggevo questo romanzo. Ovvero la consapevolezza che ormai noi lettori ci stiamo impigrendo a causa dei libri di scarsa qualità di oggi e non abbiamo più la forza e la voglia di fare un po’ di ginnastica mentale e affrontare stili particolari. Vogliamo già la pappa pronta e questo è un male!
È ovvio che la lettura deve essere un piacere (chi non la pensa così è sadico), ma allo stesso tempo è anche giusto uscire dalla propria comfort zone e mettersi alla prova per non far lisciare il nostro povero cervello ucciso dallo scrollare sui social. Ricordate: le grinze sono sexy!
E Lo studente del divino è uno di quei libri che offre un ottimo esempio per questa pigrizia.
Per riassumervi male la trama: all’inizio del libro il tuo io onirico viene colpito da un fulmine e muore. Viene resuscitato e diventa così Lo Studente del Divino. Viene mandato a lavorare in questo catalogo, dove lo scopo è trovare parole che non esistono nel dizionario e alcune di queste sono così speciali da non avere una definizione, ma una vera e propria storia. Qui incontrerà diversi personaggi che gli faranno da mentori o cercheranno di ostacolarlo nel suo compito, avrà una mezza tresca con la figlia del capo, ma più la sua ricerca proseguirà, più inizierà a perdere cognizione di sé. Aggiungeteci una quantità sproposita di weird e body horror… e volete dirmi che questa non è l’occasione migliore per vomitare interi dizionari di parole sule pagine?
Andiamo!
È pure coerente con il contesto!
È facile? No.
È uno stile incasinato? Sì.
Ma ne vale la pena.
Per non parlare che visivamente questo libro non ha nulla da invidiare a un film di Lynch.
Anche se sì, ammetto che alcune scene sono abbastanza grafiche.
Insomma, all’inizio ci vuole un po’ per ingranare, ma è tutto così sopra le righe che l’ambientazione e le atmosfere sono fantastiche.
Provare per credere!
È ovvio che la lettura deve essere un piacere (chi non la pensa così è sadico), ma allo stesso tempo è anche giusto uscire dalla propria comfort zone e mettersi alla prova per non far lisciare il nostro povero cervello ucciso dallo scrollare sui social. Ricordate: le grinze sono sexy!
E Lo studente del divino è uno di quei libri che offre un ottimo esempio per questa pigrizia.
Per riassumervi male la trama: all’inizio del libro il tuo io onirico viene colpito da un fulmine e muore. Viene resuscitato e diventa così Lo Studente del Divino. Viene mandato a lavorare in questo catalogo, dove lo scopo è trovare parole che non esistono nel dizionario e alcune di queste sono così speciali da non avere una definizione, ma una vera e propria storia. Qui incontrerà diversi personaggi che gli faranno da mentori o cercheranno di ostacolarlo nel suo compito, avrà una mezza tresca con la figlia del capo, ma più la sua ricerca proseguirà, più inizierà a perdere cognizione di sé. Aggiungeteci una quantità sproposita di weird e body horror… e volete dirmi che questa non è l’occasione migliore per vomitare interi dizionari di parole sule pagine?
Andiamo!
È pure coerente con il contesto!
È facile? No.
È uno stile incasinato? Sì.
Ma ne vale la pena.
Per non parlare che visivamente questo libro non ha nulla da invidiare a un film di Lynch.
Anche se sì, ammetto che alcune scene sono abbastanza grafiche.
Insomma, all’inizio ci vuole un po’ per ingranare, ma è tutto così sopra le righe che l’ambientazione e le atmosfere sono fantastiche.
Provare per credere!
December 25, 2012
Recommended but with caveats.
So why "New Weird" and why Michael Cisco in the first place?
I'm attracted to this type of fiction for many of the same reasons I'm drawn to certain kinds of out jazz, prog, avant classical, and heavy metal. At its best, this kind of material takes me to some unexplored corner of the human cosmos which I never knew existed, it can make me feel that rush of discovering something new, and perhaps most importantly, it challenges my notions of what is possible. Of course, when it fails, it ends up being a pretentious wank.
So that brings us to Michael Cisco. A lot of lofty comparisons have been made to Mr Cisco's work. Poe! Lovecraft! Kafka! Burroughs! Sounds good. I'm game.
Does he live up to the hype and avoid the pitfalls?
By and large, yes.
"The Divinity Student" begins with the titular character being struck by lightning, being spirited away to a medical facility, and then gets sliced open to have his organs replaced with books. Then things get really strange.
There is a narrative here. It's pretty fried. It's not at all clear what the author intended other than to have the reader puzzle over the meaning
/meaninglessness of it but it is oddly compelling.
This is essentially a dream put into words. His prose is very dense and deeply surreal. At times, it soars and at others, it taxes.
I'm not sure he lives up to all of the lofty comparisons, but he is a real talent and I would read another one of his books.
So if any of this sounds like your idea of a good read, pick this up. Otherwise, there are plenty of other books to read.
So why "New Weird" and why Michael Cisco in the first place?
I'm attracted to this type of fiction for many of the same reasons I'm drawn to certain kinds of out jazz, prog, avant classical, and heavy metal. At its best, this kind of material takes me to some unexplored corner of the human cosmos which I never knew existed, it can make me feel that rush of discovering something new, and perhaps most importantly, it challenges my notions of what is possible. Of course, when it fails, it ends up being a pretentious wank.
So that brings us to Michael Cisco. A lot of lofty comparisons have been made to Mr Cisco's work. Poe! Lovecraft! Kafka! Burroughs! Sounds good. I'm game.
Does he live up to the hype and avoid the pitfalls?
By and large, yes.
"The Divinity Student" begins with the titular character being struck by lightning, being spirited away to a medical facility, and then gets sliced open to have his organs replaced with books. Then things get really strange.
There is a narrative here. It's pretty fried. It's not at all clear what the author intended other than to have the reader puzzle over the meaning
/meaninglessness of it but it is oddly compelling.
This is essentially a dream put into words. His prose is very dense and deeply surreal. At times, it soars and at others, it taxes.
I'm not sure he lives up to all of the lofty comparisons, but he is a real talent and I would read another one of his books.
So if any of this sounds like your idea of a good read, pick this up. Otherwise, there are plenty of other books to read.
October 17, 2014
I just finished this book and all I can say is WOW! From the brutal opening chapter to the beautiful ending and the whole hallucinatory ride in between, I was captivated. This is the only thing I have read from Cisco but I intend to devour his whole catalog now. This is one of the best books I personally have ever read. My mind has been thoroughly fucked. I felt like I was a kid again reading this book. I can understand if this isn't you're cup of tea but if you don't "understand" it you're not reading it right...
August 29, 2008
I love "weird fiction" but I really felt that the author was trying too hard to be strange. There was even a quote about having always wanted to write a book that would affect the reader like a hallucination or a spell. It seemed to me that he sacrificed character and story for tone. Read "The Etched City" by Bishop instead.
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